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Hollywood's Biggest Turkeys Of 2016: The Films That Flopped

Walt Disney

I know I keep saying I can't keep these going forever, but the good news is that the film isn't going to be much of a factor in America anymore anyway. I don't mean that in a negative way, but the Star Wars: The Force Awakens dipped below $2 million on Wednesday and will soon start making less than $1m a day. That's a statement in-and-of-itself about the domestic box office, where a "leggy" movie can snag a $247.8m opening weekend, not remotely sink like a stone after opening weekend, and still be under $1m per day by the end of its sixth week in theaters. As of today, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has earned around $865m domestic after five weeks of domestic play and around $1.9 billion after just over five weeks of worldwide play.

All of that was in those first 36 days. And as leggy and powerful as the film was over the holiday season, it's still in a situation where it made around 80% of its (probable) $925 million domestic total in the first 17 days and 92% of its total in the first month. Obviously when the numbers are this large these discussions are merely trivia, but in that sense it had a somewhat conventional theatrical run. It opened huge just before Christmas, it just ran the tables over the last two weeks of the year, and then when January rolled around it started dropping like a "normal" movie. If it ends with $925m domestic, it will have achieved a 3.75x weekend-to-final multiplier. That's terrific, even in December, but it's also right between The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ($303m/$84m) and Tron: Legacy ($171m/$44m) in terms of big openers on this specific weekend.

It's obviously more important that it crashed the glass ceiling for December openings, which is very much why Walt Disney decided to move Episode VIII to December 15, 2017. And yeah, I know Avatar 2 has been officially delayed as well. I would have liked to see a Rocky IV-style showdown as well, and it's weird how James Cameron keeps making these mega-hit movies and yet somehow ends up positioned as the underdog. I'd still love to see an alternating schedule of Star Wars movies and then Avatar sequels in late December for the next several years, so here's hoping Fox and Cameron get Avatar 2 ready in time for December of 2018. But anyway, now that we know we can have massive debut weekends in December and mega-December legs to go with it, we're going to see a lot more would-be blockbusters trying to get into the end of the year slots.

In terms of worldwide box office, the film is over the $1.89 billion mark and will surely hit $1.9b this weekend if it hasn't done so already. It will be news when the film passes the $1.162b overseas gross of Furious 7 (it's at around $1.03b thus far). It will be news when it hits $900m domestic, which should happen at the end of next weekend. And it will be news when it crosses the $2b mark worldwide. If it tops the $2.186b worldwide total of Titanic, but that's not a certainty at this moment. Beyond that it's a matter of waiting to see how the rest of Disney's slate (The Finest Hours, Zootopia, The Jungle Book, etc.) fares and if there is any noticeable "Star Wars trailer bump" for the films that Disney chose to highlight. I'm disinclined to assume as much, but it will be something to look for.